"Children in Wartime Asia" Subject of Conference at Pomona College

A history conference on “Children in Wartime Asia 1931-1945”
will be held on Friday, November 11,
from 1:30-5:30 p.m., atPomona
College in the Hahn Building (Room 101, 420 N. Harvard Ave., Claremont).

The speakers will examine how thehorrors of World War II affected
children in Asia in both predictable and surprising ways. They were hungry,
sick and poorly clothed and housed. They often were separated from their
families and lost parents or siblings. Some lost their own lives. The
presentations at the half-day conference will address this neglected issue of children
in wartime Taiwan, China and the Philippines.

What prompted Pomona College Professor of History Samuel
Yamashita to organize this event was, “the
paucity of scholarly English-language articles and books on the situation of
children in Asia during World War II. This stands in marked contrast to the
experience of children in Europe during World War II, which has been amply
documented and written about.” In his own research, Yamashita said he discovered that children suffered the most, “First, because
they were the smallest and weakest; and second, because they often did what
they were told to do.”

The lecture schedule is as follows:

“Preparing for the Final Exam:
Wartime Patriotism in Children's Textbooks in Colonial Taiwan” —Winifred Chang,
UCLA